The evolution of feminist utopias

Marketos, Paul Richard

The evolution of feminist utopias

Master Thesis

1993

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Department of English Language and Literature

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

The genre of feminist utopias has its origin in the first wave of feminism which rose up in the late nineteenth century. This dissertation follows the evolution the genre, focusing on the changes it reflects in the strategies of utopian writing and, more specifically, on the developments that have occurred within feminism itself. The first feminist utopia, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland, is examined in chapter one. The novel, by depicting a productive and peaceful society consisting only of women, dramatises the belief that the economic dependence of women was not only an artificial and discriminatory system but one which also, by adversely affecting the functioning of society as a whole, retarded the progress of socialism, which political philosophy informed much of early feminist thought. The bulk of the works brought under discussion were written in the 1970s, the period of the second wave of feminism. These works reflect the radical beliefs of the time, which was one of growing reaction against form and formalism, and also the growing rifts within the feminist movement itself. Monique Wittig's Les Guerilleres and Marge piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time echo the call for the recognition of androgyny that was voiced in the sixties and seventies. The utopian societies they depict, worlds without gender, advance the view of gender itself as an artificial construct, created by sociology not physiology. They denounce the belief that there can be "equality within difference". In contrast to the politics reflected by these two works, those expressed in Suzy Mckee Charnas's Walk to the End of the World, Sally Miller Gearhart's The Wanderground and Joanna Russ's The Female Man, present gender difference as a serious (or, in Gearhart's work, insurmountable) obstacle in the path of women's liberation. In the singlesex societies that they depict, these works espouse separation by women from men as necessary either as a strategy in the struggle for liberation or as an escape from the inequities of patriarchy. The rise of the New Right in the 1980s, the combined movements of, amongst others, religious conservatism and antifeminism, the latter being supported mainly by women, has resulted in an acceptance of the political infeasibility of all women uniting to form a front against patriarchy. Also, studies in the fields of both neurology and psychology began to indicate conclusively the existence of difference between the genders, which has weakened the call for androgyny, causing feminist utopian writers to seek ways of depicting "equality within difference". The utopias written in the late eighties reflect this change in political emphasis. Sheri Tepper's The Gate to Women's Country and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale acknowledge the existence of gender difference, and do not depict a binary division existing between men and women with regard to the promulgation of patriarchy. They are also critical of the religious fundamentalist backlash against feminism that was loosed in the early eighties. The final chapter traces the evolution of Ursula Le Guin's utopian thought, focusing especially on her novels The Dispossessed and Always Coming Home. Le Guin's utopian writing, which espouses her belief in pacifist anarchism, has become more radical and less conservative over time, a trend contrary to that of the genre in general

Description

Bibliography: pages 172-175.

Keywords

English Language and Literature

Reference:

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